View from the 'Xu

dataxu's thoughts on data, analytics and the industry

Reblogged: Programmatic TV Trailblazers

Our friends over at clypd have just launched a new series on their blog, where they will profile a new programmatic TV trailblazer each week. This week, they kicked the series off with DataXu co-founder and SVP Analytics and Innovation, Sandro Catanzaro. Check out some of Sandro’s thoughts on the opportunities and challenges around programmatic TV below, and check out the full Q&A here!

What are the greatest opportunities and challenges related to programmatic TV?

Programmatic TV has just started. The most advanced media companies understand that a deep understanding of customers and their behavior leads to better targeting, greater reach, and ultimately translates in cost efficiencies and higher ROI. This is a situation where everybody wins; with marketers paying less for each consumer reached, media sellers earning more revenue per impression, and consumers receiving a lower volume of advertising, but focused on products and services that are most likely of interest to them.

Programmatic in general (and in TV in particular), allows marketers to create tailored audiences and derive analytics, such as measurement of optimal marketing investment level by product. With more certain proof of investment effectiveness, there are always associated incremental investments; this applies to the marketing investments as it does to financial investments.

Finally, by shortening the distance between the strategic decision-maker and the execution of the media, it is possible to shorten the time between concept, test, results, and iteration.

Programmatic TV’s main challenge relies in a better understanding of the possibilities, from all members of the ecosystem. Most importantly, a recognition that programmatic TV is not about paying less for the same impression, but paying more for the right impressions. Also, because it relies on new targeting capabilities, programmatic TV requires software to be developed and installed in different points of the media delivery supply chain. This follows an adoption curve that will take some time to completely develop.